


Extreme Survival Challenge

by Ramblingandpie



Series: Adynaton [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dystophia, Flash Fic, Reality TV, adynaton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 02:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11304099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramblingandpie/pseuds/Ramblingandpie
Summary: A brief look into editing for a reality show in the Adynaton universe.





	Extreme Survival Challenge

Hadley sat down in her chair and readied herself for ten hours of boredom. Nothing exciting ever happened on her shift. The twelve monitors in front of her each had a red light glowing at the bottom, indicating that there was not enough movement or sound in the shot to need to pay attention. 

Cameras 1-4, 7, and 9 each showed sleeping contestants, some huddled with each other for warmth, others around a dying fire. According to the bio-monitors, all of the contestants in those views were actually asleep. She wasn't likely to even have any fooling around to mark for review. 

Camera 11 was still recording that waterfall. She had reported it three days ago, but the camera still wouldn't respond to any commands to move or change views. She would e-mail IT once the tedium got to her. Besides, the waterfall was pretty, even if watching it all night did make Hadley have to pee. 

After about an hour of nothing, camera 7's red light suddenly turned to green, accompanied by the sound of a buzzer. Movement. Maybe some action at last. 

Shan, who was sleeping by herself, had woken up. Up until this point, Shan hadn't had much film time. She had escaped the original melee. Hadley couldn't even recall Shan killing anyone in the whole series. She did win a competition a few days ago, but it was minor and the prize merely a token. 

Hadley watched. 

At first, it seemed like more unexciting stuff as Shan checked over her equipment and the perimeter of the cave. Camera 11 was showing snow beginning to fall, hard, and it looked like some hail. Maybe that’s what woke her up, Hadley thought. 

But then Shan looked directly at Camera 7. Unusual. Most people ignored the drones completely after the first week or so, but there Shan was, staring. And then walking. 

And then leaving the cave. 

Camera 7 followed, obediently tracking its nearest bio-meter. Hadley's hand hovered over the button for manual control. What was Shan thinking, going out in this weather? 

What was Shan thinking, taking off her parka, outside, in this weather? 

Hadley's hand twitched on the manual control button and she was driving Camera 7. She circled the drone around Shan in a wide arc. Shan's eyes never left the lens, and she turned in a slow circle to keep her gaze fixed. Hadley's eyes darted to the map to see if there were any other cameras nearby that she could summon, but had no luck. Only Camera 11 was close enough. It was still recording the waterfall. 

Hadley refocused her attention back to Shan. She steadied Camera 7 and found that she was holding her breath. 

Shan removed her hat next, and then her sweater. One by one, the items of clothing ended up in a pile on the snow. They were quickly covered in a blanket of white. Shan only broke eye contact when pulling the sweater over her head. 

Shan stood naked in the snow. 

Hadley's mind raced, looking for the narrative arc. She had such little information on Shan. Shan was quiet and didn't share much. She had been kind to a few other contestants before this, but there hadn't been any recent incidents or really much interaction. She certainly had some underdog appeal, even if she wasn’t a favorite to win. At this point, contestants weren't even usually getting killed off. Most were participating in the contests with a chance of being eliminated and sent home. 

Hadley turned up Camera 7's microphone, but Shan wasn't speaking or making a sound. She simply stood there, shivering now, her extremities turning red, purple, and white. No matter where Hadley directed it to move, Shan kept eye contact with the drone. Hadley set Camera 7 to ping blue for "speak louder for the microphone," but Shan remained silent. 

Hadley herself heard a ping. Camera 2 was watching some contestants who had woken up and begun engaging in foreplay. She set it to auto record and mark for review later, and turned back to view the monitor with Camera 7. She found herself making eye contact with Shan. 

No. No, not eye contact. Shan had no way to see Hadley sitting in her office chair, in a room heated to a comfortable 68 degrees American, coffee slowly going cold in a mug on her desk. 

Hadley received an instant message and glanced at it for a moment. Another camera-watcher wanted a pee break, and had asked others to watch his screens. She ignored it and looked back at Shan. 

Hadley started mentally cataloging anything she could do to communicate with Shan and came up blank. Shan had already ignored the blue ping of the drone requesting her to speak. Hadley felt rather helpless. 

Shan fell. Hadley could not say how long she had stood there, but where her body was not marked from the hail, it was white as the snow she lay in. The bio-meter was pulsing red. Death imminent. 

And then, a solid red light. 

Hadley rubbed her eyes. How long had she been staring at the monitor, unblinking? How long had Shan taken to die? 

She set Camera 7 back to auto. It would take the standard postmortem shots: close-ups of the face and any particularly interesting injuries, a few circles around the body, and a few panoramic shots to put in any possible montage. If Shan got a montage. 

Hadley leaned back in her chair. Her back ached. Had she really been leaning forward this whole time? She blinked, bringing stinging moisture back to her eyes. 

She shook her head, and lifted her mug of coffee for a drink. It was completely cold. And she had to pee. 

She sent a quick message requesting a break.


End file.
